Akhilesh Yadav, who was swept out of power by the BJP in last year's assembly elections, said the RSS that was behind the defeat as much as the BJP.

Akhilesh Yadav said the Samajwadi Party lost because the RSS misled people.

New Delhi:

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS is dividing the people and "to save the country we have to stay away from them", Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said today. The RSS "creates a divide between us based on religion, caste, that is why I am against them," said the leader, who has refused to attend the mega meeting of the group that will be held in New Delhi on Monday.

The former Chief Minister, who was swept out of power by the BJP in last year's assembly elections, said the RSS that was behind the defeat as much as the BJP. The Samajwadi Party lost because the RSS "misled people," he said.

"If you keep the youth fighting among themselves for religion and caste, they will not ask for jobs and income. That's their plan," Mr Yadav added.

The group, he said, can't "stand" him and added, "When were in power, we worked against communalism as strictly as we could".

The RSS and the BJP, he said, called him backward. "But I ask them -- can they show somebody who built such a great expressway, distribute 18 lakh laptops?" the former Chief Minister said.

The RSS, the political mentor of the BJP, had invited the key opposition parties for the three-day mega meeting that will begin tomorrow. Akhilesh Yadav had said that after reading "what Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel wrote about them" he would rather stay away.

Calling the reports of RSS opening its doors to outsiders "fake news", the Congress said it has not received any invitation from the RSS for its President Rahul Gandhi. In any case, it is "not a medal of honour as their inherently divisive, sectarian and hate-filled agenda is known to one and all," party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.